This initiative will help boost the prominence of the Kenyan entertainment scene as upcoming creators including musicians and podcasters can make use of the studios to grow their craft.
The Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) has announced that the government will embark on putting up recording studios in every county in a bid to grow upcoming musical talent.
In a statement on Thursday, July 4, the recording studios will be easily accessible to upcoming musicians and content creators who will not have to pay fees to make use of them.
“We are going to work with county governments for the establishment of recording studios in every county where artists and content creators will record for free,” stated KECOBO.
This initiative will help boost the prominence of the Kenyan entertainment scene as upcoming creators including musicians and podcasters can make use of the studios to grow their craft.
Inside a recording studio. /THE BEST IN KENYA
Many of the country’s talented youth come from poor backgrounds and cannot afford the cost of producing and recording their music or other creative content.
The plan is set to be realised through Studio Mashinani, a government initiative through the Ministry of ICT that aims to bring recording studios closer to the grassroots providing access to talented youths in their local communities.
The studio Mashinani project falls under the umbrella of the Ajira Digital Program, which offers innovative digital solutions to address youth unemployment in Kenya on a large scale.
Meanwhile, KECOBO announced that the government was also planning to create a Sacco which will issue loans to creatives.
“The Board is in the process of engaging the Ministry of Cooperatives and Micro/ Small and Medium Enterprises Development to establish artists and creatives’ savings cooperative society (SACCO) that will allow artists to borrow at a lower rate,” read the statement in part.
These initiatives come after the Board of Directors of KECOBO appreciated music users for their support to the creatives by paying royalties as per the license issued by the Board in June.
The Board noted that following the issuance of a Collective Management Organization license to the Performing and Audio-Visual Rights Society of Kenya (PAVRISK), the collection of royalties from music users increased from a daily collection of Ksh600,000 to Ksh2.2 million.
As of June 18, Ksh22 million had been collected, according to KECOBO. This was 10 days after the issuance of the licence.
“This was an improvement from the collections that was being done previously by the three CMOS jointly. The daily collection is expected to rise to Ksh3 million daily with the introduction of an enhanced system and support from music users,” added the board.
The Board encouraged transparency in the collection and distribution of royalties by the CMO to help cut costs and increase royalty distribution to artists to at least 70 percent of the collection.
